Founding Statement
As covered by:
19.6.23
We’re in a climate emergency and most people sense it – even though they don’t see the government or most politicians acting like it.
From 40°C summers to flooded high streets, every year the weather brings the reality of climate breakdown home in a new way. What we don’t realise is that the majority of people share our growing fears. We feel alone: too small to matter. Afraid of sounding alarmist, millions stay silent. So the majority and its power are hidden. It’s time for the climate majority to make its voice heard.
To start with, we have to say together: “Time’s Up”.
Time’s up for protecting the public from reality while we wait for authorities to ‘solve’ this. Leaders can’t take the extraordinary measures required until the concerned majority becomes fully aware of our extraordinary circumstances and actively demands change.
Time’s up for last warnings on climate. There’s been “just enough time” to avert catastrophe for 20 years, but dangerous emissions keep rising. Most scientists now privately admit we are headed past 1.5°C of over-heating – the danger zone they warned our leaders never to enter. The question now is how many more avoidable disasters will we allow?
It’s time now to mainstream ambitious action on climate and nature. Nobody’s children will be better off if we continue to fail – rich or poor, corporate or counterculture. We must help each other to face our situation. Knowing we’re not alone gives us the confidence to play our part; seeing that it counts towards a much bigger plan. That’s when a majority can become an irresistible political force.
The next big thing in climate action will be many smaller things. And they’re already happening: In communities, businesses and wherever people have power, they are organising the climate action that will make governments take notice.
Signatories
Prof. Rupert Read
(Co-Director, the Climate Majority Project)
Prof. Saleem Huq
(IPCC lead author)
Prof. Kate Raworth
(author, ‘Doughnut economics’)
Prof. Mark Maslin
(author, ‘How to save our planet’)
Prof. Kevin Anderson
(Climate Uncensored)
Prof. Chamkaur Ghag
(Spokesperson, LZ Darkmatter experiment)
Lewis Pugh
(endurance swimmer, UN Patron of the Oceans)
Etienne Stott
(London 2012 canoeing Olympic gold medalist)
Anna Turney
(double Olympian, Winter Paralympics)
Kat Copeland
(London 2012 rowing Olympic gold medalist)
Chris Packham
(BBC presenter)
Dan Hooper
(AKA Swampy)
Lord John Randall
(Conservative, former Environment Adviser to Theresa May)
Sir Geoff Mulgan
(former Director of the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit and former Director of Policy at 10 Downing Street)
Ann Pettifor
(author, ’The coming first world debt crisis’ (2006)
Sir Jonathon Porritt
(former Head of the Sustainable Development Commission)
Iain McGilchrist
(author, ’The master and his emissary’)
Mike Berners-Lee
(author, ’There is no planet B’)
Dale Vince
(founder, Ecotricity)
Juliet Davenport
(founder, Good Energy)
Fazlun Khalid
(founder, Islamic Foundation for Ecology and Environmental Sciences)
Sarah Greenfield-Clarke
(founder, Climate 2025)
Carice von Houten
(actor, ‘Game of Thrones’)
Michael Rosen
(former Children’s Laureate)
Ben Goldsmith
(Conservative conservationist and philanthropist)
Lord Deben
(former chairman of the Climate Change Committee)
Caroline Lucas
(former leader of the Green Party)
Jon Alexander
(author, ‘Citizens’)